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Latrobe girls keep cool, hold off Penn-Trafford

By: HSSN Staff
Monday, January 14, 2019 | 10:21 PM

As a comfortable-looking lead began to turn into a potentially precarious situation for the Latrobe girls basketball team, senior guard Carly Augustine and her two fellow captains reeled in the Wildcats.

Breathe, just breathe.

“As the three captains, we try to stay composed and set an example for our younger girls,” Augustine said of herself, Bethany Havrilla and Kayla White, the team’s three seniors. “The last thing you want to do is panic.”

Latrobe had every reason to in the closing seconds Monday night, though, as visiting Penn-Trafford reduced a 16-point lead to three. But the Wildcats stayed composed and managed to escape with a 47-43 victory in Section 3-5A.

Latrobe (8-3, 4-3), playing just its third home game of the season — this was the start of a six-game homestand — had built a 35-19 advantage midway through the third quarter and looked poised to run away.

But Penn-Trafford (6-7, 3-4) kept shooting and shooting until it found itself within 46-43 with three seconds left.

Latrobe, in the double-bonus late, could not ice it from the free-throw line — the Wildcats made just 10 of 25 foul shots — and Penn-Trafford kept getting open looks from 3-point range.

The Warriors, however, made just 4 of 27 from behind the arc.

After Penn-Trafford junior Bella Long made a free throw to make it 46-41 with 5.9 to go, senior guard Reaghan Panza was fouled on a 3-point try from the corner.

She made 2 of 3, and suddenly it was 46-43 with 3.0 remaining.

Freshman Anna Rafferty made 1 of 2 free throws with 1.7 left, and the Wildcats wiped their collective brow.

“I thought our girls played extremely hard all night,” Latrobe coach Mark Burkhardt said. “But we didn’t play smart all the time offensively, especially with the lead, and I’ll take the blame for that.

“We have to do a better job with the ‘free and easy’ stuff: the layups and the free throws. We left a lot of points on the table. We could have blown the game open.”

Augustine led Latrobe with 12 points, and Rafferty and sophomore guard Rachel Ridilla added 10 apiece.

“We had to keep our composure at the end and show our cohesiveness,” Augustine said.

Penn-Trafford never led as the Wildcats built a 15-point lead in the second quarter (24-9). A 14-2 run allowed the Wildcats to take control at that point.

“In the first half, they outworked us and wanted it more,” Penn-Trafford coach John Giannikas said. “Our girls kept fighting, but we never were able to hit that big shot. The looks were there. We just couldn’t make that big shot. We have to be able to match their intensity.”

In the third quarter, after Long scored the opening hoop, the Wildcats scored seven straight points, including a foul-line jumper from Ridilla and a banked-in 3-pointer from White to make it 35-19.

Penn-Trafford chipped away as senior Stephanie O’Donnell made a left-handed layup to cut it to five with 1:39 left.

Sophomore Kenzie Powell led Penn-Trafford with 11 points, and Panza and Long each had 10.

Bill Beckner is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Bill at bbeckner@tribweb.com or via Twitter @BillBeckner.

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